I wanna tell you a story

(Spoilers)

Where to begin? Ah yes, a long time ago, in a county just next door to this one, a young and naive fellow started to write a story…

That led, many years later, to the published novel, Havoc. It was released on September 1st. 2018, in both digital and print versions and the author is still immensely proud of it; not withstanding that he actually managed to finish it. Now, almost year later, things are gearing up for the release of the sequel, Blast. So, for those who haven’t got round to reading the first volume yet, here’s something to whet your appetite. By creating a primer of book one, it is hoped this will help when starting book two. (Last warning - This is a brief overview of Havoc and it contains spoilers - read at your own peril.)

Here goes. Havoc is book one of the Merry Hell series. It is a comedy science-fiction novel set in a fantastical world just left of the centre of your imagination. On the whole, this is an unobtrusive little world, rarely bothering your cerebrum and flits around inside your skull waiting for a good daydream or a shot of tequila to get it going. This world is very possibly cradled in the hands of several thousand gods, but then again it might not. The people on the planet’s surface below aren’t really sure which gods are real and which are just inventions of mass advertising. But, like all pseudo-agnostics, they tend to believe in one or more to cover their bets.

Now focus the brain, straining through the cataracts of the minds eye. Slowly the fuzzy image sharpens into a small blue-green planet floating against the black void, whilst two moons orbit it like a pair of celestial sheepdogs. On this planet there is a mighty ocean. Think of the Pacific and you’re about half way there. And in the middle of this ocean lies a continent. A large sprawling land mass. It is home to a plethora of city-states, all clustered around the shores of an immense inland sea. The story of Havoc involves two of these city-states; Gurden, or more properly the Castle Gurdendorf and the Azbian Empire a city that for bizarre reasons resembles the structure of a huge beached whale. Separated by a line of mountains, the two states scream and shout at each other, not dissimilar to two neighbours squabbling over returning the garden rake or the pair of shears. Well, it’s a little bit more heated than that really. The two nations have been at war for well over a hundred years and it doesn’t look like winding it up anytime soon; not if the Gurdendorf Prime Minister can help it. Unfortunately, there are some who are trying to bring about change and things are now afoot to bring the war to a swift and timely end.

Enter the man of the moment, Captain Earnest Braveheart, commanding officer of Gurdendorf’s first, and wholly untested, special forces regiment. Hunkered down in a disused dungeon in the bowels of Castle Gurdendorf, Braveheart and his band of inept and criminally minded men train towards a day when they will at last be called to arms. Very soon they will be thrust into the spotlight of battle and fight for the future of their kingdom…and also for their lives.

On the other side of things, Grypp, the Gurden Prime Minister, tries some underhanded shenanigans (he’s a politician after all). He sets in motion a devilish plan to fuel the war by assassinating the Azbian Emperor, killing the assassins and clearing the dead wood from his secret intelligence service.  The dead wood, in this case, being one Mucus Slime, a vile little man, ridiculed by society, hated by all and despised by the Prime Minister. So starts an epic journey as Braveheart, his sergeant and three private soldiers set out on their first ever mission to assassinate the Emperor of the Empire. Not knowing that Mucus Slime has been sent after them with orders to see them all destroyed. On the way, they travel through foreign lands and across fog-bound seas, encountering mad hermits, their own frankly inept army and a professor with a worrying fascination for whales; with whose help they operate a steam powered submarine deep into enemy territory. Pushing ever further into danger, they slog through miles of burning desert, encountering enemy troops and falling foul of an explosive black powder called ‘firedust’.

Eventually, with their mission falling apart, they reach the city of their enemy and with a very weak battlecry, storm the city walls and unleash their own strange version of hell upon the slumbering city. Struggling to see their mission through to the end, they gain entry to the royal palace and do battle with a rather vicious automated laundry system. In all the confusion they create uproar throughout the city and end up playing a rather bizarre game of blind man’s buff with the city guard. They eventually flee on a monstrous steam engine, bound for who knows where and to who knows what end. Things come to head with a desperate hand-to-hand fight atop the engine and come to a finale with a giant explosion.

Havoc is the start of a story where old beliefs in magic are eroded by a fledgling chaotic industrial revolution bursting out across the lands. With no gods on hand to say otherwise, people are starting to pray to a new deity, Science, and are finding out that it can bite. How the world will cope with this new era is anyones guess. What is sure, is that there’s going to be one hell of a fight for this new technology and all it can achieve.

Gods help them all… Or not.